on the edge of yesterday
by Loca Bambina
Summary: An assignment prompts memories of some... sticky situations, and the boys discover that school projects can actually be entertaining. Oneshot.


A/N: For **Foodstamp**'s(**imaginaaation** on dA) SP fanfic contest! The theme was "the boys i mean are not refined", which is the first line of a poem by e e cummings, but I based this off the poem rather than just the line. I guess you could call it a poemfic? You know, like a songfic, just... not?

Anyway! Now that I'm done with this, I can start working on the thousand other things I need to do, including the oneshots I promised a couple people much too long ago. I'm a terrible procrastinator; I'm really sorry!

Comments and criticism are much appreciated! I don't love this one, but I'm determined not to point out what I hate about it this time. I'd much rather hear what others think.

disclaimer: South Park © Matt&Trey. "the boys i mean are not refined," "i carry your heart with me," and "since feeling is first" are all by e e cummings, and I don't own anything else you've heard of.

* * *

on the edge of yesterday

-

_Slip of paper lying discarded on the ground outside South Park High:_

**Group Number: **5

**Assignment: Research and analyze the meaning and structure of a poem of your choice by the poet written below. Report due next Tuesday.**

**Your poet is: **e e cummings**.**

* * *

Group Number Five meets at the usual spot – TV, chips, cookies, soda, and the house is quiet. They're crowded around the computer, clicking away at the links, avoiding the sporadic pop-ups. The pointer dances about the screen, a digital waltz, but no one notices.

"How about that one?"

_Click_. Another pop-up: **FREE SMILEYS! EXPRESS URSELF WITH OVER 100 DIFRENT FACES!** Behind that, the poem. They lean forward and read.

"Why aren't there any punctuation marks?"

"Who cares about the damn punctuation marks? This poem sucks ass!"

"You're just saying that 'cause you hate poetry."

"No! It's fuckin' gay! 'the sky of the sky of a tree called life'? He's a goddamn hippie!"

Next poem.

"This one looks cool."

"What's 'syntax' mean? And the part about the parenthesis? I don't get it."

Three more poems and sixteen pop-ups later, they've almost given up. But then…

"Mmph!! Mmmfhphfmhfphmfphf!!" Orange mittens stab at the screen. "Mmph!"

"What, dude? Hang on, what?"

"Mmph. Mmfmmph, mmph mmf."

They look. It's different, that's for sure. This isn't Dr. Seuss; it's not Shel Silverstein.

But they've found the one.

-

**the boys i mean are not refined  
****they go with girls who buck and bite**

"What's… 'refined' mean?" Stan asks, looking up from the screen. "Isn't that, like, sugar or something?"

"No, dude, 'refined' is like… polite." Kyle tugs on the flaps of his ushanka. "You guys sure we're allowed to do this poem?"

"Why not? All the paper says is to choose a poem by this E. E. Cummings dude."

"Mmph, mmf mmmph. Mmmph _mmf_ mmphmmfph mmph mmph, mmf!"

"Haha, yeah, _Cum_mings," smirks Cartman, lazily dipping a Cheesy Poof in chocolate sauce. "And besides, Kenneh's right, we're being creative."

"Fine," Kyle sighs. "I'm just saying… never mind. We'll do this one."

Cartman presses PRINT and reaches over to snatch the paper out of the printer, dripping chocolate sauce on Kenny in the process.

"Mmph!"

"Be thankful, po' boy. Probably the only food you'll get for three months."

"And look where all that food's gotten _you,_ fatass!"

"Guys, guys, c'mon," Stan says, leading them downstairs to the kitchen. "We've got a poem to figure out."

-

**they do not give a fuck for luck  
****they hump them thirteen times a night**

"You guys! You guys! This is like that time Kenneh fucked that girl under a ladder- what was her name…"

"Mmphmf."

"Kelleh, right. Oh man, she was _such_ a slut." They all nod in agreement but Kenny, who crosses his arms.

"You know, you never really told me what happened," Kyle says, putting down his pencil.

"Mmph… mmh mmffph, mmfph mmphf? Mmphf mmf mphf mmmph…"

_It was Friday the thirteenth again, and Kenny didn't have a plan. Usually, he had a scheme ready two days in advance, but it was already 3 o'clock and nothing had come to mind – at least nothing to beat last year's._

_Friday the thirteenths were the few days of the year when he was actually _luckier_ than everyone else. And after he'd noticed that he never got injured, never got shot at, never got attacked by rabid mutant turkeys, and, most importantly, never died on Friday the thirteenth, he made up his own little game. He called it Wheel of Fortune – not so much for the clever title as for the thought of Vanna White hosting the game show of his own life. The game was simple: each Friday the thirteenth, Kenny would surround himself with as much bad luck as possible. After all, it was one of the few days he could get away with it – it was his middle finger to Fate, his taunting of Destiny._

_But today… there were less than nine hours left, and he had no clue how he was going to enjoy his "lucky day". He'd done the black-cat-collection last time – Cartman'd helped him with that – and the salt-spilling the time before that. He'd been through the crack-stepping, the umbrella-opening… he needed new material, and fast._

_Within thirty minutes, he had it, and her name was Kelly._

_He remembered her from that gay chorus trip; she remembered him, but not his name. "Lenny?!" she cried. "Oh my God, it's you! Len- I thought I'd never see you again!"_

_"It's Kenny," he mumbled, embracing her. Kelly giggled._

_"What luck, huh, Lenny? Running into you – and on Friday the thirteenth, too!"_

_"Mhmm."_

_"Hey, so, I'm only in Colorado for the week – I'm leaving tomorrow morning – do you wanna get together tonight? Like, go out for coffee or something?"_

_"Okay."_

_She was waiting for him later that night, slowly stirring a caramel macchiato with one hand and picking her nose with the other. Kenny smiled – she'd kept that old habit (it did look kind of cute, actually) – and before he knew it, the two of them were talking and laughing about the GGWK trip, and what they'd been doing since then, and how cute they'd both been, and how hot they were now, and all of a sudden she was in his lap and her tongue was in his mouth and the store manager had to ask them to leave._

_They left, but they didn't stop._

_Kenny and Kelly worked their way across town, past silent houses and flickering street lamps, through dark air peppered with snowflakes, until they reached the dilapidated pile of sticks that was the McCormick house. They maneuvered around old chairs and beat-up trash cans; finally Kenny stopped and pushed Kelly down into the snow._

_And then their clothes were off and he was on top of her and her finger was back in her nostril again, and Kenny wondered for a moment if that held some hidden meaning._

_"Look up," Kelly whispered. They were lying under an old ladder. "Funny, isn't it? Friday the thirteenth… and we're under a ladder! Isn't that weird?" He smiled and kissed her again._

_Snowy sex. With his incredibly hot long-lost love. Under a ladder._

_It wasn't a parade of black cats, but it would have to do._

"Now that's what I call a_ sticky_ situation," Cartman laughs. "Get it, guys? _Sticky!_" Kyle swats his shoulder.

"Gross, dude."

-

**one hangs a hat upon her tit  
one carves a cross on her behind**

"Raisins," Stan murmurs to no one in particular.

"Huh?"

"We don't have any gayass raisins," Cartman sighs. "Eat-"

"No, man, _Raisins_. The Raisins girls. They're always doing weird shit like this. Remember that time Mercedes walked around wearing nothing but boys' accessories? It's like... it's this poem was written about her."

"One of those accessories was yours, if I remember correctly," Kyle laughs.

"Yeah… aw, she let me decide where to put it, too…"

_"Whatcha doin', 'Cedes?"_

_"Huh? Oh, nothing!" she giggled, tying the flaps of a dark blue hat that looked oddly like Craig's around her waist. Her naked waist._

_Stan bit his lip and took a step forward. You never knew what you were going to find behind the school…_

_"Can I, like, borrow your hat?" She finished the knot and spun around to face him, quickly covering her boobs with her hair. She wasn't _that_ big of a whore, after all._

_Stan didn't say anything, just pulled off his hat and handed it to her. His black hair fell in his eyes – he moved to flip it off his face, but stopped and brushed it off instead._

_"Thanks, sweetie!" Mercedes contemplated the hat. "Where do you want me to put it?"_

_"Uh, what?"_

_"It's my new _idea_! I'm wearing boys' clothes- but not, like, shirts and pants and stuff, just hats and scarfs and tiny things- to um… um… well, there was something important…" She sighed. "Where should I put it, honey? I think the poofball looks good… right here…"_

_Stan gulped. She'd motioned to her breast._

_"What do you think?" Mercedes modeled Stan's hat – the boob-hat, as he'd always think of it – and giggled again. "Aww, it's cute. I love your hat, sweetheart."_

_"Um, yeah. It's- yeah. The poofball, uh, it looks good on you." _

_He never wore that hat again. Maybe it was out of respect – a sort of sacred object – or maybe it was the weird white stuff he found inside when she returned it…_

"Now that's what _I_ call a sticky situation!"

"No, Jew, that's a poofy situation. Get it right."

"There's no such thing as a _poofy situation_, fatass!"

"Poofy! Like the poofball!"

"God, Cartman, you are _so_ stupid-"

Stan clenches the bridge of his nose.

-

**they do not give a shit for wit  
the boys i mean are not refined**

Kyle scratches his head, careful to keep his curls hidden under his ushanka. "Who doesn't give a shit for wit? The guys or the girls?"

"Who fucking cares?" Cartman tilts his head back and dumps the leftover powder from the Cheesy Poof bag into his mouth, then crumples it up and tosses it at Kenny.

Kenny rolls his eyes. "Mmphmfmmph mmf, mfmphf mphmmfm."

"Haha, yeah!" Stan laughs. Kyle buries his head in his arms.

"Don't. Don't say it."

"_Un-eth-i-cal._"

Kyle cringes again. Cartman notices this and licks his lips before standing up, nearly knocking over the bowl of Italian salad dressing in the process.

"Oh, _Kahl_," he calls in a high-pitched voice. "Wanna have _sex_?" He leans forward. "You know you _want_ to, Kahhhl. Oh, what's that? You don't want to… what? I'm sorry, un-what?"

"Fuck you, fatass," Kyle mutters. "Was that your Britney Spears voice? Have you been practicing in your backyard again?"

"Ey! That was fuckin' fourth grade!"

"Yeah, and the ethics thing was…"

"Last year," says Stan softly, and Cartman cracks up again.

_It had been one wild party. Jimmy was famous for being an entertainer, but they hadn't know he was an _entertainer_. Not even Heidi's homecoming party back in freshman year could rival this one, and that one had been fucking _insane_. By two o'clock, everyone at Jimmy's was either puking all over the kitchen, hallucinating in the corner, or passed out right on the floor._

_Everyone except for Kyle, that was._

_He'd had half a cup of beer, and that was only because Stan had sloppily forced it into his mouth, mumbling something about banana splits. And then Stan had stumbled off to make out with Red, of all people, which had led Wendy to perform a raunchy strip dance on top of the coffee table, and half an hour later the three of them and Token had been found sleeping in Jimmy's parents' closet, completely naked._

_Kyle had watched it all from the living room without saying a word. Occasionally he'd had to shift his position on the couch to dodge beer, vomit, and flying underwear (Tweek's, he'd assumed by the size - and by the fact that it was, well, flying underwear), but his goal was to remain virtually motionless until the time came to drag Stan and Kenny into the car. Cartman would have to find a way home on his own – there was no way Kyle was attempting to move that fatass from the house to his SUV. _

_Bebe ruined his plan._

_"Heyyy, sexyyy," she slurred, her pungent breath stinging his nose and eyes. He blinked._

_"Bebe, you're drunk." _

_She giggled. "Noooo, silly, it's yellow!" Kyle sighed._

_"Go to sleep, Bebe. It's two A.M."_

_"You're up," she pointed out before attacking his face with her sticky wet tongue. Kyle pushed her away._

_"Come on. You're totally wasted." Bebe's response was to decorate Kyle's cheeks with more spit. "Bebe?"_

_"Fuck me," she whispered, licking his ear. "Oh God, Kyle, fuck me _now_." Her fingers playfully brushed his crotch, but he didn't feel playful at all. He just wanted to get home. He was tired; there was nothing wrong with that, right?_

_He shifted away from her, accidentally sinking his palm into a pool of vomit. _Shit_. He wiped it off on the side of his pants and glanced back at Bebe – in the three seconds he'd looked away, she'd managed to slip out of her skirt and underwear and was working on pulling off her shirt._

_"Bebe, I really don't want to-"_

_"I love you, Kyle," she breathed, her fingers fumbling to undo the button on his jeans. He squirmed. This wasn't right. She was wasted. Images flashed into his head – no condoms – Sex Ed – STDs… he panicked._

_"Bebe, we really shouldn't be doing this-"_

_"Shhh." She tugged at his pants. "Oh my God, I'm getting so hot." He couldn't tell whether she meant she was aroused or Jimmy's air conditioning had stopped working, and he didn't really want to know._

_"I'm sorry, Bebe. We can't do this." She continued attacking Kyle's zipper, ignoring his reasoning. "It's unethical."_

_"Huh?" She looked up._

_"It's unethical. We're both underage in the first place-" –he was confused, clouded, spewing out whatever he could to get her off of him– "-and you're not even supposed to be drunk, and I have morals, and I can't just screw any random girl, and you could get pregnant or worse, and I don't want to get HIV, not again." He took a breath and looked at Bebe. She'd gone back to playing with his zipper._

_"Goddamn it," he muttered, and pulled away. Bebe froze._

_"You…"_

_"Don't want to have sex with you."_

_"Because…"_

_"It's immoral."_

_She nodded and, after three minutes, fell fast asleep, rolled off the couch, and landed with a thud on the living room floor. He left. The next morning he'd received no less than seventeen emails calling him a prude and a goody-goody. Apparently, through her intense hangover, the only thing Bebe had been able to remember was Kyle's speech, and she'd proceeded to spread the story all around school._

_It had taken several weeks for the girls to stop calling him Red the Repressed._

"Mhmphmhfm mphmfphm mfmmf?"

"Eh… I wouldn't call _that_ one sticky, Kenneh."

"Mphmfmphfm."

"Yeah, it could've been," Stan agrees, laughing. Kyle pulls his ushanka down to his eyes.

-

**they come with girls who bite and buck  
who cannot read and cannot write**

"So what do we have so far?" Cartman leans over Kyle's shoulder.

"Uh. Kenny's a whore, the Raisins girls are whores, I'm not a whore." Kyle sighs, tapping his fingers on the notepad. "Oh, and a doodle of Craig." They look at Stan.

"What?" he shrugs. "I like drawing." There's a pause.

"You guys, we're not getting anywhere. We need to stop getting sidetracked," Kyle says. "The project's due on Tuesday-"

"I _told_ you we shoulda started earlier, but Stan the pussy had goddamn football practice!"

"At least playing sports keeps me fit, fatass," Stan shoots back. Kyle rolls his eyes.

"Mmmfmphmfph, mphm fmh. Phmpfhm mmfmph."

"Kenny's right," says Kyle. "We really need to get back to work."

"But this poem analysis thing is so _boring_," Cartman whines. "Can't we take a break?"

"…a break."

"Yeah," Stan agrees, pushing his chair back. "Let's go play with Cartman's old Okama GameSphere."

"Mmph!" Kenny jumps up. "Mph mph!"

"I'll get it," Cartman offers. "It's on top of the fridge… right… nyah." He climbs up onto the table and takes a step towards the refrigerator, placing all his weight on the edge. Suddenly the table topples, taking Cartman with it, and he struggles to find something to break his fall.

Kenny's the lucky winner.

"…oh my God, dude," says Stan, shaking his head. "You killed Kenny."

"Way to go, fatass," Kyle comments from his chair. "Damn, Cartman, you're such a bastard."

"Ey! It was _not_ my fault he was in the way!" Cartman picks himself up from the floor and rubs at a bloodstain on his jacket. "Damn po' boy needs to learn to look out."

"He wouldn't have had to if you weren't so fat!"

"You guys!" Stan shouts. "L- let's just get back to work. Cartman, you should probably go change. You're all bloody."

"Fahn," Cartman says, heading out of the kitchen. "But Kyle better not pull any Jew tricks-"

"What the hell, Cartman!"

"All I'm saying is-"

"_Go_," Stan presses, then turns back to Kyle. "Dude, about this project-"

"What project?" Kyle asks bitterly. "This isn't a project, it's a disaster. There's no way we're going to pass at this rate."

"Maybe… maybe we should just finish this up, and then… I dunno, make up some crap about rhyme scheme?"

"It's not just rhyme scheme, though. We're supposed to dig deep within the poem to find the meaning. We're not finding any meaning, Stan. The poem's not deep enough." Kyle sighs. "Let's face it, we're just going to fail."

"Dude… Kyle…" Stan pauses. "I…"

"You what?" says Cartman, poking his head back in the kitchen. "Oh, sorry, fag, did I interrupt your confession?"

"Shut the hell up, Cartman," Stan mutters. "How'd you change so quick?"

"_You'd_ want to know."

"The hell is that supposed to mean?"

Kyle sighs and pulls the table upright. "Let's just get back to work, okay? Let's just fail. Whatever." He picks up the pencil and notepad, ignoring Stan's worried expression. "Next line."

-

**who laugh like they would fall apart  
and masturbate with dynamite**

"Uh… they what?" Stan asks, rubbing his left temple.

"Mphmmfmmphf!!" Kenny grins, popping up beside him. ("That was quick," Kyle notes.)

"Heh, yeah, fuckin' sweet," Cartman agrees. "Betcha that slut Rebecca would, if we gave her a stick of dynamite. She's so goddamn stupid."

"Look who's talking."

"Ey!"

"You know, Cartman, you're probably right," Stan laughs. "I heard she once forced her boyfriend to wear a condom on his tongue while they were making out."

"That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard," scoffs Kyle, but he smiles.

"Mmmphmfmfhph?"

"Her boyfriend? Oh… Butters." They stare at Stan. "Yeah, I dunno. He'll do anything you tell him. Remember that time Cartman almost got him to suck his dick?"

"That was _gold_. Oh man, that was so great, you guys."

"…it was gay." Kyle raises his eyebrows. "Like really, really gay. Second only to that time you made out with Kenny behind the school."

"Mmphm!" Kenny laughs. "Mfmmfph!"

"Wha- _ey!_ We were _not_ making out! We were- we were TPing the principal's office! Why'd you _tell_ them that, Kenneh?"

_School had ended a while ago, but Cartman was still on campus, kicking pebbles at the classrooms. He didn't particularly feel like going home – his mom's "business" had been booming lately, and there was no way he was going to sit on the couch all afternoon and try to drown out the moans with the crappy old TV._

_He picked up a bigger rock and chucked it at the window. It bounced back. He swore out loud and bent to pick it up again. Somebody shoved him from behind; he fell over onto the ground, landing face-first but rolling onto his back to see who his tormentor was._

_Above him, Kenny grinned._

_"What the _fuck_, Kenneh?"_

_Kenny giggled. "You're not hurt. All those fat layers are cushions." Cartman rolled his eyes. "What? No 'ey!'? No excuse?"_

_"You're not the Jew," he muttered, grabbing the hand Kenny had extended and using it to pull himself up. Kenny was surprisingly strong. "What're you doing here, anyway? Mommy and Daddy beating each other up at home?"_

_"Ah, there's the Eric I know." Kenny laughed. "FYI, dude, I had tutoring."  
"You get tutored?"_

_"In math." Kenny shrugged. "Whatever."_

_"How the fuck do you pay for tutoring, poor boy?"_

_Kenny punched him on the arm. "It's free, fatass. Kyle's helping me out."_

_Cartman narrowed his eyes. "…so the Jew's here too? What, lemme guess, Jock Boy's here for football practice."_

_"If you knew anything about your friends-"- here Cartman snorted – "-if you knew anything about your friends, you'd know football season hasn't started yet. And Kyle went home half an hour ago." Cartman was silent. "So it's just you and me."_

_"Just you and me," Cartman repeated._

_"Alooooone," Kenny winked._

_Cartman rolled his eyes. "Not this again, Kenneh." Kenny didn't seem to hear – or care – instead, he inched closer to Cartman and put his tiny hand on the other's beefy shoulder. "Kiiiinnnnyyyy, I'm seriouslah. This is stupid."_

_"I don't care," Kenny whispered, pulling off his hood, and it was clear from his eyes that he didn't. He didn't give a shit about anything anymore. Kenny was his own person, his own being, floating from identity to identity. He wasn't gay, he said, only joking. No one knew if he was telling the truth._

_His face drew closer to Cartman's, the trademark alluring smile changing shape, bunching together into a teasing pucker. Cartman fidgeted, expecting Kenny to stop here and laugh, like he always did, and then he'd make some remark about poor people being assholes, and Kenny would punch him in the arm._

_Instead, Kenny kissed him._

_His lips were chapped and dry, but his tongue was soft, and before Cartman knew it, that tongue had knotted with his. Poor Boy knew what he was doing. _

That makes one of us_, he thought. Cartman had only ever kissed one person, and it sure as hell hadn't been anything like this. This- this was warm and wet and… different._

_He shook his head. Kenny somehow took this as an indication that Cartman wanted more, and he pulled him closer, pressing his lips even harder against the fat boy's, running his small hands across his large shoulder blades and large shoulders and his large neck and…_

_Wh- whoa. Not cool. Cartman pushed him away._

_"What the hell?!"_

_Kenny said nothing, just wiped his mouth and looked at the ground._

_"Kenneh, what the fuck did you just do?"_

_Kenny said nothing._

_"Kenneh!"_

_"You're a terrible kisser."_

_"Wh- that's not what I asked! Tell me why the hell you just made out with me or I'll-" Cartman looked around for a possible threat. "I'll tell the principal you still cheese!"_

_"Psh, like she cares. Cheesing's old, anyway." Kenny shrugged and lifted his hood back over his head. "Learn to take a joke, Eric." He laughed and turned away. "See ya tomorrow, dude."_

_Cartman picked up the rock and chucked it after him, hitting Kenny in the back of the head, then sat down on the hard ground._

_Fuck._

"Sticky situation," say Stan and Kyle together, then high-five.

"Gay minds think alike," retorts Cartman. Kenny giggles.

"Mmphh, mhfhmph. Mmmphf… fmh..."

"Goddamnit, Kenneh, Ah am _not gay!"_

_-_

**the boys i mean are not refined  
they cannot chat of that and this**

"Oh, that one's easy." Stan looks up. "They're bad at holding intelligent conversations, right?" Kyle nods and Stan grins, proud.

There is an awkward silence.

-

**they do not give a fart for art  
they kill like you would take a piss**

"Mfmmph mmphm. Fmmphmf."

"Yeah, art sucks ass," Cartman nods, craning his neck to get a look at the notepad, which is currently in Stan's possession. "Who're you drawing now, pussy? Clyde?"

"Looks like Token," Kyle comments.

"Okay, Stan, seriouslah? Not cool. We're trying to work here?"

"Oh, yeah, 'cause we've gotten _so_ much work done."

"Mmph…" Kenny shakes his head.

"Well I, for one, am working. I'm workin' my fuckin' ass off," Cartman says.  
"Good," says Kyle, reaching over Stan's shoulder to pencil in the trademark T on Token's sweater. "That'll take off a couple hundred pounds."

"Kahl, you are being _such_ a Jew right now, seriouslah."

"At least he's not homicidal," says Stan, putting down the pencil. "See this line? 'they kill like you would take a piss'? Who does that remind you of, Cartman?"

"Saddam Hussein?"

"No, fatass, he means _you_. Remember the Scott Tenorman incident? You just- it wasn't even, like, premeditated-"

"Ey, I was _nine_."

"Mmph, mfmphm…" Kenny sighs.

"That _is_ kinda the point," Stan agrees. "If a nine-year-old could force another kid to eat his parents… that's pretty fucked up, dude."

"Mmphm."

"Ah, screw you," Cartman says, leaning back in his chair. "You're just jealous 'cause you're too pussy to kill anyone-"

"Fuck you, fatass," Kyle interjects, but Stan smiles.

"Cartman, you've saved us." He scribbles furiously on the notepad. "Oh my God, dude, this is great."

"Mmph?"

"What, Stan? What's great?"

"N-no, hang on, lemme think," he says, tapping the pencil on the table and murmuring to himself. "And tha- yeah, Kyle and- yeah!"

They all stare at him, stare at the goofy smile growing to his cheeks, and they all think the same thing. _What the hell?…_

_-_

**they speak whatever's on their mind  
they do whatever's in their pants**

"Kenny," sighs Cartman finally, breaking the silence.

"Mmph?"

"You suck ass."

"Mfmm! Mmphmf phmf mmfmph…"

Stan checks something off. "No, no, good, that was easy. We just need 'they do whatever's in'-"

"Wait, I don't get it," Kyle says. "What do you mean, we need-"

"Okay, so, you know how we've basically just come up with random memories and shit for all the lines – I was thinking… why don't we make that into our report?" Stan taps the first line of the stanza with the eraser end of the pencil. "Like, here, Cartman basically just said whatever he felt like saying, and over… here, this relates perfectly to that whole Mercedes thing… we could… we could explain each one to the class, or something… we wouldn't even have to do, like, a real report…"

"Mphm! Fmffm, mmph!"

"Fuck, Stan, where do you come up with these things?" Kyle asks, scratching his head again, and Stan beams.

"Y'know, 'cause we're probably not going to get any actual work done – and this way we'll be creative-"

"Creative, my ass. We're not telling the class I made out with Kenny! That one's not even related, anywa-"

"Aha!" Kyle laughs. "So you admit it!"

"Seriously, Cartman, it's not that big of a deal," Stan sighs, glancing at Kenny. "I mean, half the kids in class have _screwed_ him; one little kiss is nothing."

"W-wait." Kyle blinks. "Stan, Kenny… have you…"

"No!" Stan says fiercely, just as Kenny mumbles something along the lines of "Hah, I wish." "I- I mean, Kenny, you're cool and all, but- I'm not like that-"

"Ey! Neither am I!"

"-and all I was saying was Kenny's been with so many people, not necessarily _all _of us…"

_"He does whatever's in his pants," _Kyle whispers suddenly, then grins. "Thank you, Kenny!"

"Mmphm?"

"Yeah, thanks for being such a whore," Cartman snickers.

"Mph mmfm."

"I- my mom is _not_ a whore, goddammit!"

-

**the boys i mean are not refined  
they shake the mountains when they dance**

Stan looks at Kyle. Kyle looks at Kenny. Kenny looks at Stan.

"Cartman," they say simultaneously, then laugh.

"…_ey!_"

* * *

"And so, uh, we found that this poem was really, um, int- introspective?" A glance, a nod, and he continues. "We all related to it, you know? And it brought back memories."

"Mmfmff, mphmm fmphmfm mmph, mmph!"

"Hell yeah, you gahs. Except for that one about me making out with Ken- uh… Kendra. Shit, she was hot."

"Eric, we all know you won't ever get laid, so don't bother." A red pen taps against the desk; a balding man leans back in his chair. "Look, it's fantastic that this poem brought out such _wonderful, beautiful_ feelings, boys – well, I expected that from Stan – but you're all failing unless you show me you did the actual assignment. Do you have any comments about the poem's structure?"

"St- structure?"

"Mmph?"

"Go, Jew." A whisper, fervently hissed in a left ear. The other glares but steps forward anyway.

"Um. The poem mostly follows an ABCB rhyme scheme, there are five stanzas, it's written in Cummings's usual style with no punctuation or capitalization," he says quickly. "And we found the, um, explicit nature of the poem to be a good example of… uh, poetic license."

Silence.

"…fine. I guess I have no choice but to pass you, then, even though I'm sure Kyle was the only one who actually did any work. Yes, that includes you too, Stan – don't think I don't see the doodles you drew on last week's homework." A soft pink blush paints the boy's face instantly. "Interesting… interesting report, boys."

More silence – incredulous, happy silence, and then applause.

They high-five, they laugh, they punch the air, until the next group comes up, and then it's time to clear the stage.

The boys dance back to their seats, shaking the mountains all the way.


End file.
